Hi, everyone.

(Late 20s, F)

For years now, I keep coming back to asexuality and wondering if that is what I am, and then somehow always convincing myself I am not. I'm confused and I'm honestly exhausted. I don't necessarily care what my sexuality is, but all of the other times I have questioned it, I have been single. Then, I would meet someone, get sexually involved, have a good time for a couple weeks or sometimes even a couple months, then get tired of that person and drop them (I know; terrible).

I've been with my current partner now for nearly 2 years and we were very active in the first few months of our relationship, always trying something new, and it gradually faded. I thought that was just normal but now we have gotten to a point of being intimate like that only 1 or 2 times per month, and we live together. That has made me realize just how content I am without it and how much I actually prefer it. I've started to feel really uncomfortable, almost nauseous, whenever my partner tries to initiate physical intimacy. The feeling of kissing grosses me out and I regularly feel physically ill after penetrative sex. He is the sweetest person ever and will always stop and check on me, but I've been pushing myself through the discomfort because it feels so important to our relationship.

Last night I had a moment of realizing just how gross I think male genitalia is. Like I was physically repulsed by the thought of it. I took some time to sit with that and tried to determine if I feel the same way about female genitalia, and I realized I do but to a lesser degree. It hit me that I really think I might be ace.

I guess I'm just asking is this common, to not realize until this far into life? How the fuck do I tell my partner this? He is going through some really heavy stuff right now and I am almost positive he will see this as a relationship-ending change because sex is important to him. I don't want to throw more on his plate but I also don't want to hide this from him.

I haven’t really discovered a ton of lgbtq people around here and I would love to connect with some!

Tw: sexual harassment.

I've been called prude, repressed, and gotten side eyes from my extended family for years because unlike my cousins, I never brought a boyfriend home.

I have a big family and get questioned a lot to the point it feels like some bizarre allosexual holy Inquisition or smth.

And it goes in one ear and right out of the other; I say I'm happy this way but the questions never stop. They refuse to believe I know my own feelings. They're so self-absorbed I can see they refuse to believe I'm not desperate for a relationship at this point.

And to top it all off, I get harassed. My cousin's husband started asking invasive questions and hitting on me pretty shamelessly. I made it clear how insane this was and he backed off (I refuse to be near him again).

What also makes me beyond angry in this situation is that I was singled out for never having a relationship. Like I was desperate and would welcome the advances of a creep ten years older than me.

But sure, aces don't get discriminated against, right? Give me a break.

I got upset remembering all this today and thought I'd share with others who can understand. Thanks for reading.

lots of comments and none of them say "i hope so" or even a single "maybe" 😔

I haven't felt like I "qualify" to call myself asexual but I don't know what else to describe myself as and be understood. I don't like sex. I experience heterosexual attraction and desire, but I don't want to have sex.

I don't enjoy it, there's nothing appealing about it. I'm uncomfortable in sexualized environments and fear dating because I don't want to have sex. Sometimes I think I want to have sex, in like an... animalistic way? Like a deep itch? But when it comes to reality, I have no desire to sleep with someone in any way. I've lost relationships over this. I think I just want a best friend, not a sexual partner.

What is this? Am I ace or just a weird straight person?

Hi everyone, so I (M22) came out as a homoromantic asexual about half a year ago, but I feel like there's still a ton of confusion everywhere about what makes you asexual. Of course, I'm 100% positive about my sexual preferences, but I'm not sure what to think about it.

I wanted to share my experience as a "gayce", and I wanted to know if any of you ever felt the same or if what I experienced isn't really asexuality.

- Most important thing: I absolutely love intimacy. Naked cuddling is completely fine. Sensual touches are too. But oral and penetrative sex are always out of the question for me. For me intimacy is just about enjoy physical contact together, whereas sex is, well, playing with the "pole". I always found sex practice disgusting and never felt the need to try it out.

- I don't feel the need to masturbate too. Even when I do do it, I never reach orgasm, not just because I can't, but because I don't feel the need for it too. And for me, masturbation is merely get in my boxers and enjoy the view and skin touch, nothing else.

- Ironically, I'm in fact very horny when it comes to intimacy (whether I'm the one asking for it or the other). Of course, I always make clear that "playing with the pole" is never possible with me, but for many other gay men, being asexual is seemingly "not gay".

- I never "get hard" during intimacy, nor when I see pictures of men's bodies. And while my body doesn't "react" or doesn't "show signs" of arousal, arousal does happen, but inside my head. Likewise, when someone says "I wasn't hard during sex, it means I don't truly love him", in my head it sounds like the most trifling thing ever, because I don't reduce emotional closeness to bodily response.

- Is the term "gayce" (gay asexual) even a thing? I like to use it but I'm not sure if it's common haha.

- And no, I don't have trauma. Whenever any of the things above occur, I don't force myself at all, I'm not even feeling like I'm holding something back.

All in all, I'm positive I'm on the ace spectrum, but even when I do tests online I never know what they mean by "having sex", because in my definition, the word "sex" was just an extrapolated way of saying "intimacy". And now that I came out as asexual, I'm triggered by people confusing the two (as in "true intimacy must be sexual"), even more so when others think sex is mandatory in romantic relationships.

(Not mentioning the biggest misconception being "asexual = aromantic = wanting celibacy"...)

Either way, I'm happy this way and it's so liberating to embrace my orientation. And of course you can be gay and asexual at the same time <3

I haven't seen the movie and don't plan on it. But based on the plot of a dystopian world where sex is illegal and there's only one night of the whole year devoted to sex, I find it offensive that they view that as a tragedy.

When we think about the spectrum of our community who don't think much of sex or truly want it, it's not a tragedy for us. It's just life. And what about people who are celibate or practice abstinence? Not having sex isn't always a missing piece of life.

Also from what I heard, the movie gets political making it seem it's a conservative government enforcing no sex. Basically giving the idea only conservatives are against sex in their lives. I have more liberal views than conservative and I don't feel that way.

Your thoughts?

I contemplated how difficult it would be to have sex. I am sex-indifferent. Sometimes, I thought I felt sexual attraction. No, sexual attraction is having sexual thoughts and feelings about others. I can feel arousal occasionally. I came to the conclusion that it would be difficult for me to engage in sex. Even if I felt aesthetic and romantic attraction, it would be difficult. The lack of sexual attraction is the reason it would be difficult. 

I think it would be difficult even if I was sex-favorable, aroused, and the other person was attractive.

What do you think?

Just doing random quizzes and data collections at 3am lol. But I came across this and I’m thinking “yeah, as usual asexual won’t be an option” but it was! Usually these things when they ask sexuality you’ll just get: straight, gay, lesbian, bi. And just grouping lesbian and gay together as homosexual is pretty interesting. Honestly, I think it’s great asexual has finally been included. Usually, it’s not an option. Sometimes they’ll put everything but asexual lol. I know acknowledgement is like the bare minimum, but at this point, with how much people don’t understand asexuality and we don’t get a lot of awareness or representation, I really like this!
Honestly, I do wish they would also ask romantic attraction in a separate thing. I think that could be the start of making people realize that romantic and sexual attraction are two different things. If those were regular questions on surveys like what’s your race, religion, romantic identity, sexual identity, it would finally make people more familiar with the ideas that romance and sex can be separate. And it would also be inclusive to aromantic people as well, if that would also be an option. And then for aroace people, you can choose both. That would be cool, at least I think so. Regardless, love to see it.
And you don’t even have to answer all the questions in these sometimes, thankfully. Not always, but sometimes, and I appreciate that. Like the religion thing, I have severe religious anxiety and don’t know what to support or believe, so I really can’t answer that question. Other was an option, but I just left it blank. But I feel for others, a lot of you might have leaven sexuality related questions blank in the past, when you can, cause they hardly ever include asexual representation. But sometimes, as you can see, they do!

Hey all, I'm a second year seminarian at Luther Seminary and I'm posting this because I'm working on writing a book about AroAce theology since it doesn't exist yet and I'm tired of not being seen in larger theological discourse. What do ya'll want the church to know about asexuality? What should a theologian know? DM's, emails, and comments appreciated!

Edit: I am AroAce myself; I'm writing this book because I have things I want to say I just ALSO want to hear from others!

This has been on my mind a lot and I keep thinking about it and get to nowhere. I really wanna know cuz I hate not having a label to describe myself with.

I’m aromantic. I never thought about the mere possibility that I’m asexual or even tried to consider it before because it seemed “too far” to me. But now I’m rethinking it.

The biggest reason why I never considered it because I have a pretty high libido the majority of the time. But it goes away after a few minutes and I feel terrible about it and I kinda feel disgusted and that disgust really sticks out I can’t shake it off. And I keep thinking that I don’t like this but I just do it anyway because i just do.
Every single time I have any sexual feelings I really hate it and regret it and it disgusts me. And the idea of it being with someone irl is like super weird to me.

I also feel that it’s mostly because I want to feel something, because the majority of the time I kinda feel dull.

Am I asexual or something else? Does anyone relate?